Univ.Ass.Mag. Kurt Mayer MSc. IFF Organisationsentwicklung & Gruppendynamik M/O/T School of Management, Organizational Development & Technology Alpen Adria Universität Klagenfurt Schottenfeldgasse 29 1070 Wien T: +43 (0)1 / 522 4000 204/ M: +43 (0)664 / 831 74 87 E: kurt.mayer@uni-klu.ac.at http://www.mot.ac.at

WHEN ARTS MEET MANAGEMENT:

NEW MODES OF INTERVENTIONS FOR INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP LEARNING?

KURT MAYER

M/O/T School of Management Organizational Development and Technology

Paper prepared for the Conference

„Management Makes the World Go Around – Learning for the Future in

Management and Organizations“

NOVEMBER 2010

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We can therefore be blinded by what we know. We can be blinded by our expertise,

our mindsets, filters, paradigms, beliefs, orthodoxies, and rules of engagement, many of which we are not conscious or aware of.

We are blind to what we don’t know we don’t know.”

Heemsbergen (2004): The Leader’s Brain: How are you

using the other 95% (p. ix)

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Table of Content

ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................................3

I. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................4

II. ARTS AND MANAGEMENT: PRELIMINARY NOTES ..........................................................................5

Arts….....................................................................................................................................................5

….And Management.............................................................................................................................7

III. ARTS MEET MANAGEMENT: SKETCHING A ROOM OF INTERACTION IN DEVELOPMENT.................9

Effectivity of Arts Intervention as the Power of Pictures ......................................................................9

Art and Skill and Competence Build-up on an Individual Level.............................................................9

Arts Intervention on an Organizational Level .....................................................................................12

Stop the Bump: The Tasks of Art in Business ......................................................................................15

IV. CONCLUSION AND PROSPECTS.....................................................................................................17

V. LITERATURE..................................................................................................................................19

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Abstract

In the context of financial and economic crisis the non-learning of organizations can also be

traced to a failure of the function of management and leadership and to their´learning

experiences´. When executives and leaders primarily act as agents of profit and as instruments

for the economy, the time has come to reflect about new forms of interventions in the learning of

organizations and management.

In this context “Learning for the Future” means that managers shaping their organizations for

the future have to challenge and change their perspectives to view things from a different angle

and to look for new ways of understanding and dealing with the scope and speed of change in

today’s society.

Against this background this paper is investigating on the hypothesis, that artistic competence

can be such a source of inspiration and innovation for both the individual manager and the

organization as a whole. Are artists able to irritate organizational routines, stimulate new ideas

and open leader´s minds to think and behave differently?

The paper is based on an analyses of a) the most relevant research papers and literature of the

field b) different programmes and practices of joint projects in Germany, Sweden, Spain and

Austria and c) case studies on very interesting European initiatives designed to promote the

processes of collaboration between cultural artists and businesses. As the most relevant output

the paper tries to

• understand the impact of artistic interventions in business • find out more about the motivation and targets of both parties • describe the structure and logics of the two fields, arts and management • compare methods used in the processes • identify best practices and the criteria of success • share lessons learned about the essential features of these projects

The paper also reports on the role of the intermediary organizations (mediation platforms) that

drive the programs and the mediators / consultants who help to bridge the different “worlds”.

There is some major evidence for the need of a “third party” for organizing the contact, reflecting

the process and evaluating results.

Finally the paper tries to connect our results into the context of those major strands in theory of

innovation and organizational learning we cited at the beginning of this proposal to frame our

basic hypothesis and to build a scientific foundation.

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I. Introduction

The key question of this paper is to elaborate relevant factors for the cooperation of the both

social fields of arts and economy and to point out the effects of arts-based intervention for

business processes such as transformation, innovation and learning.

What and how can arts-based interventions add to the sustainable assurance of the survival of

organizations? And what and how can arts add to organizations guaranteeing their future in a

social and sustainable way

Our question treats the aspect of business management: it is about the survival of

organizations.

The further exceedance of this aspect highlights the relevance for the society, to which the

progress of organizations and companies has an important impact. On consideration of current

societal problems such as climate change and the financial crisis, there is an interest of finding

suitable interventions for organizations which activates the awareness, decision-making and

responsibility solving problems.

The focus of the arts is against the background of the economy which is engaged to

shareholder interests and therefore tends to make high and short-term profits, whose social and

ecological implications (keywords: climate change, financial crisis, oil disaster in the Gulf of

Mexico) increasingly detracting the fundamental means of existence of our society. In this

context long before the financial crisis Mintzberg (2004, p.185f) speaks of a big crisis of

business management. The new elite of managers which directly pushes forward from business

schools and MBA-programs to executive suites of transnational cooperations and the financial

sector, uses organizations as a vehicle of personal ambitions without any team spirit or long-

term strategical considerations. The destructiveness of this caste appears in disputable

commissions, high compensations and falsification of a balance sheet alike the practice of

stealing and fleeing and abdicating from one's responsibility.

There again we are faced with a political system, which is not able to act as a corrective of our

economics. The halfhearted (Kyoto protocol) to powerless (UN Climate Change Conference in

Copenhagen) measures for counteraction against the climate change or the hesitant actions for

the regulation of our disastrous financial instruments are obvious facts therefor. The elites of the

political system are mired in mighty economical interests which makes it difficult to differentiate

between politics and economies (Prime Minister Berlusconi quasi is the top of the iceberg.).

Beyond that the political system is against the background of media democracy increasingly –

quasi self-referential – engaged in its own orchestration and marketing. Election campaigns and

political discourse are more and more becoming marketing campaigns, which are directed by

professional PR and communication experts. The public discourse degenerates to spectacles.

Politics are becoming political orchestrations. The discussed problems are chosen and formed

by experts before.

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The arts thus carry high hopes for our society. “The world is not in a perfect shape” says Nancy

Adler1 relating to the explanations above and with reference to “financial crisis, poverty crisis,

health crisis, education crisis, environmental crisis (…)”. Her conclusion is: “Only by investing in

the artistry of our humanity will we create the peaceful, prosperous planet we deserve”2. The

dimension and depth of the expectations and hopes in arts meeting management are brought to

bear with the following citation of management consultant Margret Wheatly:

“And yet the opportunity here is to really explore more of the dimensionality of life, more

of our emotions, more of our human spirits, because humans have gone through

periods of darkness and chaos before, and we do not have to fix it, but we do need to

know how to go through it. And for me that is where music, poetry and deep emotional

expression will save ourselves. I do not see this as a casual need to say, well the arts

should come into business. I see this as: Is it possible for business leaders to realize

that the dilemmas in question they are facing cannot be solved by their traditional

management behavior, their traditional management tools? And that they are going to

need to really be able to dwell in the deep domain of human experience and things like

faith, courage, friendship, love, compassion, all of those emotions, grief, loss, which are

only expressed in the arts.“ (Margret Wheatley, cit. in Darso 2004, p.34f.; Hervorh.

durch den Autor3).

II. Arts and Management: Preliminary Notes

ARTS….

Blanke justifies the arena (?) of arts as a human creative will. He assumes that the will to create

is resident in every human being and – individually different in extent and effect – is practised at

work and everyday life. Businessman and businesswoman, politicians, educators, philosophers

and even gardeners follow their need for creation. The phenomenon of playing children is not

just an arbitrarily action but a form of creative activity (Blanke 2002, p.31).

Art as a play developed to its highest level activates and expands the will to create. This

concept of art is based on the perception of esthetics of a humanistic idea of man in the age of

enlightenment.

“The human being only plays, where he is human in the full sense of the word, and he

is only a human being there, where he plays. This sentence, which seems to be

paradox the first moment…will, I promise you, carry the structure of esthetic art and the

much more difficult art of life.” (Schiller 1795, zit. in. Blanke 2002, S.31)

1 Nancy Adler ist S. Bronfman Chair in Management und Professorin in Organizational Behavior an der Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Sie ist gleichzeitig Künstlerin, Schriftstellerin und Malerin. Das Zitat entstammt einem Vortrag, welchen Nancy Adler im Rahmen der Social Hour der Management Consulting Division auf dem Annual Meeting der Academy of Management 2010, Montréal, Canada- August 6-10, gehalten hat.

2 So das Motto der Ausstellung die Nancy Adler im September 2010 eröffnet hat: Reality in Translation, Going beyond the dehydrated language of management, World Premiere September 1-19, 2010 Montréal. Artist Nancy J. Adler

3 Überall wo im Folgenden in den direkten Zitaten eine solche Hervorhebung aufscheint, wurde diese vom Autor vorgenommen, um die Schlüsselaussagen nochmals hervor zu heben.

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It is necessary to raise the interest on arts, to activate the will of creation und to broaden it by

arts-based interventions. (vgl. Blanke 2002, p. 31-32). The key role of artists could be “to help

the rest of us see more, to broaden our perspectives, and to get in touch with both internal and

external forces that we might otherwise not notice.” (Schein 2001, p. 81).

New studies to the field of arts point out its irritating, disturbing and challenging effect:

“Therefore, rather than mollifying and comforting us, the artistic agenda exposes us to

issues that disturb and challenge. (…) We argue, that without this shock, the kinds of

changes in consciousness and the social action necessary for creating a sustainable

future will not occur“. (Bathurst & Edwards 2009, p.119f.)

This article contains an interesting citation of a commentary in the New York Times, where she

deals with the question, why work of art often is vandalized. Smith argues that there is a widely

spread attitude as follows:

“(…)simple refusion to entertain paradox, to see art as a coalescence of grey areas,

ambiguities and multiple interpretations. Art´s job is to provoke thought in ways that are

difficult to resolve and uncomfortable; it´s a relatively neutral place to experience the

unresolvable issues that dominate real life, to practice a kind of abstract flexibility that

might move us toward resolution in real life.” (Smith 2004, cit. in Bathurst & Edwards

2004, p.120)

Art has the power to question seeming unambiguousness and to surface ambiguity, gray areas,

polysemy and different interpretations. Art is based on and fed by these ambiguities, by difficult

and apparently insoluble questions and also is able to unearth them. It is however provocative

and not always comfortable to be confronted with these ambiguities and questions. Though art

allows us to cultivate handling these questions in our everyday life. Lotte Darso (2004, p. 40)

says concerning this matter:

“For the arts and artists ambiguity opens up for immense possibilities, different

perspectives and new approaches. This concerns the artistic process as well as the

finished artwork. One of the discerning features of art is indeed that it can inspire

multiple interpretations. Ambiguity is an invitation to the freedom of changing

perceptions and forms (…) .As ambiguity thus expresses a pertinent condition of society

as well as an important value (…)

Also for Darso ambiguity as key dimension in artistic processes and outputs of artistic creation

plays a decisive role and is related to the condition of life in modern societies, which is marked

and affected by ambiguities which as value open up degrees of freedom.

It is also important that arts exceeds the border of pure intellectual dedication „enabling us to

feel at a deeper level the issues that a work might provoke“ (Dean, Ottensmeyer & Ramirez

1997, p. 422), which demands an emotional answer and makes it possible.

Bathurst & Edwards (2009, p.119f.) too point out an emotional root of the effect of arts and

describes this „heightened emotional response“ as a basis for enabling transformation

processes on the organizational and societal level. („provides the motivation for radical

change.“)

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….AND MANAGEMENT

“Every company changes in every second of its existence. To model these changes

consciously, but also to just let it happen, that is its intrinsic artistic element.” (Erich

Colsman, Barthells-Feldhoff GmbH & Co. KG, cit. in Blanke, 2002: p. 62)

Does management action contain artistic elements? If it does so, what are these elements? And

where are their borders?

Henry Mintzberg (2004, 2009) alludes to the fact, that management is not what it is often known

as: namely an aggregation of special functions of business such as marketing, finance, etc. In

contrast to this view he conceives management – and he does not make any difference

between leadership and management, because in his perspective one needs the other – as a

trilogy of capabilities, which he describes as follows:

� Practically acquired technical skills

� A dash of artistic capability

� A solid analytic body

There are similar arguments of Fredmund Malik management consultant from St. Gallen, who

puts management to an intersection with art, science and common sense (Malik 2006). Also

Schumpeter saw the action of his central economic player, the “dynamic entrepreneur”, in the

context of arts:

“He adds something to the data. He forms and pulls them together in a new way, like

great artists do (…) He does not act because of immediately expected demand. He

imposes his products on the market. Neither any new machine, nor any new brand

would be created under the pressure of demand.” (cit. In: Blanke 2002: p. 63)

Blanke points out the equal initial situation of arts and management. Both fields have similarities

where materials, a physical structure and an idea are combined to create. In this context he

quotes Erich Colsman a businessman, who explains the connection between arts and

management.

“For me art is an attempt to peel something out of a raw material or a situation to

exaggerate and to bring it to an impact. This is my manner of management: To create a

symbiosis out of a given market situation and organizational structure, which is more

than the very construction of it. In this respect every organizational process is an artistic

process, because I need to arrange the process in a way that every single person can

use his/her potential, otherwise he/she will not stay or rather do what he/she would be

able to.” (Erich Colsman, Barthells-Feldhoff GmbH & Co. KG, cit. in Blanke, 2002: p. 62)

This analogy is impressive as management processes are creative acts which are able to

activate and develop the will of creation, as described above concerning the field of action of

arts. Blanke interprets this picture of artists and managers as twins, who stand back-to-back

and transmute everything they lay their hands on to expedite the word together. Such an

idealistic and smoothed picture which is based on the common will to create blanks out other

important dimensions, which characterize the field of arts but are not existent in nowadays

management structures: ambiguity, disturbance, irritation, emotion. Lotte Darso (2004, p.40)

says:

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„For business, however, ambiguity and uncertainty is uncomfortable and in most cases

something that must be reduced or controlled. Business people prefer to work with

specific goals, detailed plans and accurate measurements.” (Darso 2004, p.40)

This rational approach of today’s managers and their education in management schools are

also criticised by Mintzberg (2004). There is a fixation on instruments and technics such as

competition analysis, business games, scholastic mathematized market models and case

studies in particular, without considering the context of these used tools. The students of

business schools mainly learn how to interpret facts elaborately whose further actions are

based on their results. Management is primarily understood as science. In this constricted

perspective the decisions are based on logical analysis models, which are not irritated by simple

human issues and problems. The hegemonic reflection of management at universities and the

specialized media creates a heroic picture of management, where managers stand above the

company and make decision and develop strategies on their own based on analysis,

management ratios and instruments of controlling

This is far away from irritation, from imponderables of life and complexity. This is management

far away from arts.

Darso cites that the implementation of Taylorism in the second industrial revolution led to a

fragmentation and collapse of the platonic “Big Three, the Beautiful, the Good and the True”.

“From then on only pure objective reasoning (the True) was appreciated, and the Good and the

Beautiful were neglected.“ (Darso 2004, S.27). From the perspective of organizations the

machine metaphor dominated in the 20th century (ebda.; vgl. auch Schreyögg & Sydow 2001,

p.81; Simon 2009, p.41). Organizations were seen as – their structure and processes – as

rational entities. Emotions were a disturbing factor, which the management had to eliminate or

at least control and handle as their duty. According to Schreyögg & Sydow the cause for the

dominance of a rational image of companies has following tendencies:

- The connection of Taylorism and the strong influence of engineering and economical perceptions, which affected management science with rationalism/objectivism.

- The commonly division of rationality (male) and emotionality (female), combined with traditional male dominance of organizations.

- The wish of management to control everything in their organization and the negative connotation of irrationality.

As we mentioned above there is a focus on emotions and emotional answer which are an

element of arts. The exclusion of emotions from the field of management leads to a big gap

between arts and economy.

Summing up art is an intrinsic element of management actions. Today’s management practice

does not activate this potential. A stimulation of these potential is necessary particularly

concerning the present change of our economical environment, which advantages the change

to come from the arts. Along with the end of the last century economics changed which

indicates arts as a particularly suitable form of intervention, able to set these stimulations.

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III. Arts meet Management: Sketching a Room of

Interaction in Development

Based on these preliminary remarks, we would like to put a spot on interaction between art and

economy. Why should arts interventions be apt to change the behavior of companies and their

organizational strategies in a way that they not only can survive better but also make said

behavior and strategies long lasting? To approach this question we have to differ between

learning processes on an individual level and on an organizational one, like you can see in

Concepts of Organizational Learning (chapter IV) [„Konzeption des orgasiationalen Lernens

(Kap. IV)“] and as it was shown in a studies of the ‚Art and Business Gesellschaft’ (see Figure 1

below). Before we start I would like to mention the possibilities of perception, which are relevant

for arts intervention.

EFFECTIVITY OF ARTS INTERVENTION AS THE POWER OF PICTURES

Lotte Darso states in a source available only on the (http://www.bart.fi/files/ld_statoil.pdf;

7 November 2010) that

- 95% of our thinking is non-conscious

- At the non-conscious neuron-level we “see” in pictures

- Approximately 50 – 75% of the brain is comprised of neurons devoted to processing visual stimuli

This leads to the conclusion that arts interventions could also be efficient in management

because they differ from the predominant ways of digital communication (language-based;

complex and logical syntax, information, the focus is on WHAT) and connect to the analogue

level of communication (image-based, interpersonal level, the focus is on the HOW).

ART AND SKILL AND COMPETENCE BUILD-UP ON AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

One of the amazing effects, in connection with the complex and chaotic innovative economy, ist

he tendency to develop new competences and skills to handle our professional – as well as our

private and public – life. We are in need of independence, reflection, creativity, a sense of

responsibility, entrepreneurship, the ability to work in a team, and conflict management; to

mention just a few of the soft skills that are valuable for employees and managers alike. The

company is no longer a mere working place but is turning more and more into a ‚place of human

development’ („Ort menschlicher Entwicklung“, Blanke 2002, S. 53). These challenges call for

abilities, which are rooted deeply in the personality and to gain them requires complex learning

processes. Art and arts intervention can play a major role during the development and refining

of these new skills and competences on an individual level. Ed Schein looked into that matter

and formed six basic criteria, which will be discussed below.

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Figure 1: Figure One – The Spectrum of arts-based activities with business

Source: Arts & Business (2004), S.20

Edgar Schein, professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, considers the

artist to be an important part of arts intervention. They are paving the way and take on the role

of an agitator becoming an activating and interpreting force. Schein explains the effect on

possibilities of learning and learning processes in six functions:

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1. Art and artists stimulate us to see more, hear more, and experience more of what is

going on within us and around us (Schein 2001, S.81)

The artist’s specialized way of perception, combined with the expressive realization of their

perceptions via their personal instruments, create new perspectives, hone ones own perception

and help to tell apart inner and outer forces in everyday situations.

2. Art does and should disturb, provoke, shock, and inspire. (Schein 2001, S.81)

This means that you are taken away from the security of everyday life and get confronted with

uncomfortable situations that you normally try to evade. Existing subtle drawbacks are

discussed and an examination is encouraged. The reaction to this method is shown at the arts

intervention ‚Live and Direct’ of the multinational company Unilever. Actors supervised that

process for months and eventually put their experiences into a theatre performance to display

the problems and relevant emotions for the employees and managers. In this way it was

possible to show drawbacks the management hadn’t been aware of before. (vgl.

Boyle/Ottensmeyer 2005; S. 16-17)

We stated in chapter 2 about Tacit Knowledge with Lakoff & Wehling that these ‚Deep Seated

Frames’, which structure our understanding of the world and form our value-based common

sense are completely resistant to learning by standard communication because contradictory

factors are just faded out. Arts intervention utilizing ‚disturb, provoke, shock, and inspire’ could

mean the difference and create a new way of learning.

3. The artist can stimulate us to broaden our skills, our behavioral repertory, and our

flexibility of response. (Schein 2001, S.81)

The effectiveness of exercises of improvisation that cause subconscious emotions to surface

are mentioned in this point. Spontaneity and intuition, both dimensions of improvisation (Darso

2004: S. 47), include hidden emotions in the emotional repertoire and broaden and improve the

human behavior.

4. The role of the arts and artists is to stimulate and legitimize our own aesthetic

sense. (Schein 2001, S.82)

Schiller (Styhre & Eriksson 2008: S.3) states: „In a word, there is no other way to make the

sensuous man rational than by first making him aesthetic“. He doesn’t consider art to be

decoration or adornment but as a tool to gain rationality. He contradicts Kant’s opinion about art

as ‘expediency without function’. [(“Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zweck“ (Styhre & Eriksson 2008: S.3)]

Blanke (2002: S. 34ff) talks about an esthetic condition, which means that people approach a

situation intuitionally and use their own creativity to reach a specific goal. Artists can help to find

esthetic aspects of life and determine their meaning for your own accomplishments

The more and more neglected creative subjects in favor of scientific subjects at schools result in

a lack of artistic and creative abilities of employees and managers. Arts interventions are able to

enhance psychosocial competences and to compensate these shortfalls. On one hand they

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stimulate the creative and artistic potential, on the other hand they scrutinize our habitual

perception and behavior (vgl. Blanke 2002, S. 22-23).

5. Analysis of how the artist is trained and works can produce important insights into

what is needed to perform and what it means to lead and manage. (Schein 2001,

S.82)

Improvisation is a very important topic in this part. Its utilization is very complicated in reference

of a team to be lead. Managers are challenged with the task to react to conflicts and hints that

require a certain ability of improvisational skills. It is not about satisfying ones own needs but the

needs of each and every team member.

Improvisation requires creativity: ‘Creativity is important for leadership because it is the

component whereby one generates the ideas that others will follow’ (Sternberg 2003, in Styhre

& Eriksson 2008: S. 4)

6. Most important of all, the artist puts us in touch with our creative self. (Schein 2001,

S.82)

Your own creativity enables to perceive the environment from a different angle, to realize new

ways of work, and to support your self-fulfillment.

ARTS INTERVENTION ON AN ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL

The report of Arts & Business (2004) observes that the major part of business-arts interventions

only affected the personal level of organizations. At the same time it is mentioned that there are

tendencies that ‚artists have been able to broaden their work with businesses’. New companies

used art forms like, e.g. the Forum Theater ‚(to) gradually expanding the continuum of arts

interventions from the left-hand box, which describes personal and team-based development

activities, towards the right-hand box, containing organization-wide change and transformation

work’ (Arts & Business 2004, S.21). Below we will show why and how this could be effective.

ART AS RULER OF TOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY

In the complex and chaotic, and necessarily innovation-based, environment of economy of the

21st century an ability is gaining a focal relevance that so far has been considered to be an

interfering factor in the linear and rational way of economical thinking and has been eradicated

ever since: the active and constructive dealing with ambivalence, ambiguity, and double

entendre. Tolerance of ambiguity is the ability to realize contradictions, cultural discrepancies or

plurivalent information that are difficult to understand or appear to be unacceptable and to find a

way to deal with them productively.

“But nobody can avoid ambiguity in this rapidly changing world and business, like it or

not, must face and deal with a lot of unknowns. The question is whether corporations

are equipped for this?” (Darso 2004, S.40)

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Art works with ambiguity, enables different ways of interpretation, plays with emotions, and

encourages ambivalence. There is most likely no other field of activity more apt than art to

enhance this ability that we need in this new complex and chaotic economy.

THE CHARACTER OF THE INNOVATIVE PROCESS AND THE NECESSITY OF NEW WAYS OF PLANNING

“Creativity has to do with the production of novel and useful ideas […] and innovation

has to do with the production or adaption of useful ideas and idea implementation”

(Scott & Bruce (1994), zit. In: Styre & Eriksson 2008, S.4)

We have discussed in chapter II that the innovative process with its attributes of searching

and experimenting – „search for, and the discovery, experimentation, development, imitation,

and adoption of new products, new production processes and new organizational set-ups“ - is

becoming a more and more important process of economy. The analogy to art is hard to miss.

The same is valid for managerial processes of planning. We found that the linear and

mechanistic approach of planning – traditionally used by bureaucratic major organizations and

now applied to changing processes – is no longer adequate. Artists and their learning

processes based on art could not only upgrade individual skills but also anchor much more

confidence in the company culture.

“In moving from traditional managerial approaches to improvisation, core skills shift

from sequential planning-then-doing to simultaneous listening-and-observing-while-

doing. Successful improvisation only occurs when team members trust that their

colleagues are taking care of the team’s best interest. Individual star performance

undermines, rather than supports, effective collective action. It is no surprise, then, that

managers are increasingly turning to improvisational actors, dancers, and musicians for

guidance as they attempt to shift from sequential planning to approaches incorporating

more spontaneity”. (see Van-Gundy & Naiman, 2003, zit.in Adler 2006, S.492)

TACIT KNOWLEDGE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

The importance of ‚Tacit Knowledge’ has been mentioned in chapter III. It appears on two

different levels, either in skills, or in superior ways of interpretation and interpretation

patterns. Said ways of interpretation are rooted in the individual. The organization, designating

functions, modes of operation, communication, and decision making processes, has a major

impact on the existing ‚Theories in Use’ (vgl. Argyris und Schön in Kap. IV). Peter Drucker calls

in this context the organizational culture an ‚inaudible melody all members of an organization

dance to’.

We assume that arts intervention – playing with emotions, working with ambiguity, and enabling

different interpretations: with its tendency to compress because of the different media (pictures,

theater, music) – to be best to determine existing tacit knowledge that hasn’t been

communicated so far and to turn it into something that can be communicated, developed, and

negotiable. Better than other settings and tools of consulting or OE, arts intervention can make

the incommunicable communicable and further development processes with their intuitive

approach and the non-analytic way of using metaphors, analogies. They can create the

provocative focus that stimulates reflection and interaction and enable new interpretations of

experiences. The employees are challenged by arts interventions to observe situations from a

different point of view, which creates new ways of perceiving reality.

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By this encouragement, challenge or provocation to share tacit knowledge, make it transparent

and negotiable, arts interventions can establish conditions that aim the company’s activities

towards common goals.

FUTURE, VISION AND MEANING

Artists are the avant-garde by tradition that grasps future tendencies that are barely noticeable

but have the potential of expansive implementation and turns these tendencies into items open

for discussion. This report has mentioned over and over again that – because of massive

changes in the economic environment – employees and the organization require a central ability

to deal with the fickleness of future here and now. Scharmer (see chapter IV) emphasizes on

the learning from the future and offers a method of presenting in his U-theory.

There is no leadership without a vision because it would only remain an extrapolation of the

past. Considering the new economic reality, such an extrapolation is not sufficient. Leadership

needs a vision, as a sketch to perceive the future by intrinsic motivation, as an integral symbol

of orientation with a goal. The problem is that the market, which is more and more becoming a

basic mechanism of organization in all areas of life, offers no perspectives of the future by itself.

It is constructed by opportunities, risks, and speculation. However, for the future viewed as a

project – with all the human desires, hopes, and necessities - the ability to shape and influence

are a must. The more politics, meant to guarantee the possibility to shape and influence,

dissolved, the more the management of organizations are challenged to substitute the vacuum

and to work together with the people with a vision-based leadership, to adapt, and to create

solidarity and identity. Arts interventions have the potential of doing their part.

“The artist must paint or sculpt or write, not only for the present generation but for those

who have yet to be born. Good artists, it is often said, are fifty to a hundred years ahead

of their time, they describe what lies over the horizon in our future world. (..) The artist

(…) must (…) depict this new world before all the evidence is in. They must rely on the

embracing abilities of their imagination to intuit and describe what is as yet a

germinating seed in their present time, something that will only flower after they have

written the line or painted the canvas. The present manager must learn the same artistic

discipline, they must learn to respond or conceive of something that will move in the

same direction in which the world is moving, without waiting for all the evidence to

appear on their desks. To wait for all the evidence is to finally recognize it through a

competitor’s product”. (Whyte, 2001: 241–242, zit. in: Adler S.491)

15

LEADERSHIP OF POSSIBILITY IN THE NEW ECONOMY

Gary Hamel first and foremost explains in context with the new economic situation (keywords:

learning economy, knowledge economy, tacit knowledge) the relevant possibilities (contrary to

the restraints that often dominate the actual production

„The gap between what can be imagined and what can be accomplished has never

been smaller.“ (Hamel 2000, S.10 zit. in: Adler 2006, S.487)

The question that Nancy Adler, referring to Maurel et al (2004, 15) adds to this is: “Now that we

can do anything, what do we want to do?” The answer focuses on breaking up the linear

continuation of the paths from the past by a new form of Leadership of Possibility that bases

more on ‚hope, aspiration, and innovation’ than the ‚replication of historical patterns of

constrained pragmatism’. The core ability of leadership of possibility is the „anticipatory

creativity“ which enables us to design or invent future options that are worth to be

implemented. According to Adler this has been a process that was connected to art and artists

than management so far.

„The economy of the future will be about creating value and appropriate forms, and no

one knows more about the processes for doing that than artists.” (Austin 2005, zit. in

Adler 2006, S.487)

STOP THE BUMP: THE TASKS OF ART IN BUSINESS

Art adheres to an esthetic logic and is potentially able to make a difference between profit and

efficiency logic. The difference should put a Stop in the Business Bump as an analogy to the

children’s book Winnie the Pooh.

16

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his

head. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he

feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and

think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.”

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IV. Conclusion and Prospects

At the beginning of the 90’s arts innovations have been non-existent in economy. Since then

there has been a major increase in numbers as well as organizational diversity of such projects

and the variety of the projects’ art forms cover de facto the whole spectrum of arts. At the same

time more and more scientific literature dealing with this topic is getting more and more fast. The

work of Darso (2004) is groundbreaking. He developed important categories and differences of

this new area of interaction by a series of case studies

Observing the effect of art projects on economy show two different axis. One axis is about the

polarity of individuals and organizations (the effect on people and learning from organizations;

effects on organizations and learning from organizations). This part is included in most papers

but often lacks a systematic elaboration. We tried to allocate importance to this axis, however, it

will take a lot more of systematic utilization of the learning models mentioned in chapter IV and

the developed thesis’ of chapter V to enhance the effect on individual and organization in this

area of conflict. The second axis bridges the space between the strengthening of the

competitive capability within a paradigm of production on one hand, and the creation of new

forms of organization and leadership to escape the boundaries of this paradigm on the other.

The ‚societal hope’ mentioned in the opening statement is connected to that. The second axis

either non-existent in the literature used for this report or only very vaguely defined. The

example for a good practice could be categorized as follows.

Figure 2: Dimensions of Effectiveness of Arts Interventions on Economy

The selective projects of Catalyst caused an impact on the level of the individuals (eg.

motivation; broadening perspectives) and partly even on the level of organizational culture. The

complete framing of the project was set up to strengthen the competitive capacity within the

Catalyst

Airis

18

framework of a traditional model. The following quote of Keith Weed, chairman of Unilever

Fabergé couldn’t point it out any better.

”At the end of the day, I am a hard-nosed businessman who wants to sell more washing

powder. This is not a soft issue, it’s a very hard issue of how you motivate and inspire

people. We are a mass-market consumer goods company. We sell more than a million

and a half units a day. And if I didn’t think this program was pulling its weight I would cut

it in a second.” (Keith Weed, Chairman of Unilever Fabergé über das Catalyst

Programm, zit. in: Darso4)

The effect on a societal level in the Airis program exceeded that because the program – with its

continuous feedback and evaluation – was set up as a learning project and contributed to the

creation of a regionally rooted network economy that took the new economical conditions into

consideration. This classification was more or less a starting hypothesis than examination

findings and should stimulate further discussions. The effectiveness of arts interventions within

a duo dimensional framework mentioned above is in our opinion the right approach for further

research. Special conditions and forms of OE supervision should be taken into consideration if

the projects should be sustainable and effective.

4 http://www.bart.fi/files/ld_statoil.pdf; 7.November 2010; released only on the internet

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